


Tropic of Cancer

by cosmic_medusa



Series: Two in the Snow [5]
Category: Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Genre: M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 09:47:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21052352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_medusa/pseuds/cosmic_medusa
Summary: An incident at his club leads Larry to rethink he and Freddy's life in South America.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please look at warnings, and be aware it's Tarantino universe, so there's terrible language. Can skip to Chapter 2 for pure fluff. Should read [Two in the Snow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20513411) first. And title also stolen from the novel of the same name. :)

Rick Matthews can’t believe the size of the club when the car pulls up—Larry had made it seem like it was a small, underground operation. But it’s full-sized and alive with slot machines, waitresses in short skirts, and a handful of poker and craps tables.

It was obvious why Dimmick had stayed down here—the money went a long way. Larry had described putting a small crew together to fix games, then running it up to invest in this place. Back in the States, Dimmick had the reputation of a solid, quality stick-up artist and a guy whose loyalty was unquestioned: here, he was a boss of his own accord.

It solidified Rick’s own decision to move south.

A stunningly beautiful woman greeted him with a smile and a heavily accented “You’re expected,” then lead him past the gambling tables to the bar, where Larry was sitting in a booth with a cigarette and a glass of scotch, talking in awkward Spanish to a man who looked like a bouncer. When he caught his eye he rose, dismissed the other man, and stepped forward to meet him.

“Sonofabitch,” Larry greets him, and the two embrace, brief and hard. “I still can’t believe it. The fuck you doing down this way?”

“Same as you—running up my earnings.”

“I hear that. You won’t believe how easy it is down here.” He raised his glass at the bartender and gestured to him. “You on your own?”

“Now, yeah. Christine finally wised up and left my drunk ass.”

“I’m sorry, man.”

“It’s for the best. Jesus Christ the women down here. You wave a dollar at them and they’re on your dick like white on rice.”

A waitress came by with their drinks—Larry gave her a polite nod, while Rick gave her a lear. She ignored him and sauntered off.

“Not here,” Larry warned. “These are all my people, one way or another.”

“You selling ass down here too?”

Larry lit a cigarette and frowned. “We’re almost all above board here. Legal gambling, cute wait staff, a bar. Bordering on straight.”

“The fuck for?”

Larry took a long, hard drag. “I made a promise to someone. I intend on keeping it.”

“You serious? Fuck, man, if Alabama couldn’t pin you down, I figured no one could.”

“Wasn’t expecting it. But yeah. I’m an honest man now, much as I can be.”

“Surrounded by all this, and you throw it out for one pussy? The fuck is this broad, man?”

“You had a wife for almost 15 years. Now you get to go out. That’s great, but you don’t remember what it is to be alone. _Really_ alone. For a long fuckin’ time.”

“Try being married to a bitch who hates you. That’s just as fuckin’ lonely.”

“Well, cheers to you.”

“I don’t mean no disrespect, man.”

“Then none taken.”

Rick finishes his glass and waves toward the bar, only to find two fresh drinks appear at their table. “Two scotches,” an American voice says, and he turns to find a young, floppy-haired blonde man there, in a black t-shirt and jeans. “This one’s half-water,” he says, and pointedly places it in front of Dimmick.

“I ain’t through this one, buddy-boy,” he chuckles, and takes a long drag of his smoke.

“Christ, man, you’re monogamous, you’re going straight, _and_ you’re cutting back on the booze? I want what you’re fucking.”

“Damn shame. Because I don’t share.” He turns to the kid and smiles. “How’re things?”

“Making a killing off the slots. Tour bus came through a half-hour ago. Girls can’t keep the drinks filled, so I’m tagging in.”

“Really,” Rick turns to Larry. “You got this place stacked with pussy _and_ rent-boys, and you ain’t slapping a price on any of their asses?”

“I ain’t no fuckin’ _rent boy_,” the kid snaps, his voice suddenly savage: despite his height and build, there is a sudden and very real danger to him that has Rick putting his hands up in mock-surrender.

“Just saying, you’re a good looking kid.”

“I ain’t no fuckin’ _kid_ either.” 

“Take a breather,” Larry says softly. “Rick here’s an old friend, going way back. Not the most gracious. But as I’ve told him, everyone here belongs to me, one way or another. He promises to be on good behavior.”

“No offense,” Rick grinned, and took a drink. “What brings you down here?”

“Chasing a unicorn.” The kid picked up Larry’s glass and drained it. “Boss,” he said, and sauntered off. Dimmick sighed.

“I hope you know I’m going to hear about this later.”

“You let that little punk talk shit to you?”

“I told you—everyone in here is mine, one way or another.”

“Fuck, man, I could chill him out for you in a second.”  
  
“Put your hands on that man and it’s the last fuckin’ thing you’ll ever do.”

There’s not an ounce of joking or levity in Larry’s tone—it’s every bit as dark and dangerous as Rick had ever heard it. He holds his hands up again in mock-surrunder.

“Jesus Christ, Dimmick, can’t believe how fuckin’ touchy you’ve gotten. Hands off, alright?”

“Things are different for me now. I’m trying to do good here, much as pissrag like me can. That man is off limits.”

He glances across the room, and Rick follows his gaze to the bar, where the kid is pouring drinks, and it hits him like a sucker punch—“holy shit, you’re fucking him.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re fucking him. You’re fucking that kid. Jesus fucking Christ.”

“He’s not a fucking _kid_.”

“_That’s_ what you left LA for? Fuckin’ shit man, you could have cruised the boulevard and scooped up half a dozen of them a night—”

“Watch your fuckin’ mouth!”

“—and you up and run _off_ with one?”

“You and me have been friends a long time,” Dimmick said slowly, “and I respect you, and you’ve respected me. But you need to watch every word you say from here on out. Because I promise, whatever it is you think I’ll do if you don’t, it will be ten fuckin’ times worse.”

“Alright, man,” Rick soothed. “I’m sorry. Just a shock, is all. I didn’t think you ran that way. Now that I know, it’s nothing. Been a bumpy landing for me, okay? Came down here to forget it all. Seems like you did too.”

“No worries,” Dimmick says, and lights a fresh cigarette. “You relax here, enjoy the free drinks, hit the tables. Just keep the hands to yourself, okay?”

“Above board, brother,” he grins. “Above board.”

*

Freddy has never been able to walk into a men’s room without thinking of the fuckin’ commode story, ever since Holdaway put it in his hands.

He hates that it reminds him, every time, of his old friend, and the LAPD, and the oath he took, and the life he fled, and the fuckin’ nightmare of a job that left him with two bullet wounds and a lifetime of trauma. It hits him all at once, every time he passes a stupid swinging door, even when he braces for it. And each and every time, he tries to fight it off with the thought of _Larry_.

Larry was bigger than the horror of the warehouse, bigger than the pain, bigger than years spent in shitty apartments with his shitty parents and then his shitty roommates, trying to be something better than average. The job gave him Larry, and Larry had given him the world, quite literally: travel, adventure, and now a real business, one Larry tried his best to run without dipping back into the underworld.

Besides, even if it was to take a piss, thoughts of Larry were never far when his dick was involved. He still got hot for girls and guys alike, especially surrounded as they were, but nothing drove him crazier than Larry’s laugh lines, and the way he’d wink at him from across a room, or play hard to get when Freddy was writhing all over him. Nothing made him hotter than thinking _that man is mine_, and knowing Larry was thinking the same, burning for him and proud of him and promising pleasure the moment they could be alone.

He could do without this new “friend” of his…but sometimes he forgot just how different Larry was from the dickhead gangsters around him. Which is why they’d clicked so hard in the first place.

He took a hard look at himself in the mirror—black t-shirt, jeans, same hair, same too lithe form—and tried to decide if he screamed ‘faggot.’ He’d tried so hard, all his life, not to be: he’d lifted weights, he talked smack, he’d played sports, he’d showered with the guys without looking, he’d had prom dates and plenty of backseat sex with girls. He’d been a fuckin’ _cop_ for fuck’s sake. He’d always felt he could _pass_.

Freddy splashed some water on his face, something Larry always told him to do when he was upset. He had all sorts of tricks to calm him down—rubbing his back, combing his hair, lighting his cigarette. He was always a steady, rock-solid presence, which is what had drawn Freddy to him in the first place. He could command a room without dominating it, and he kept all the men he put together in line, making sure they were fair and calm and never hurt without reason.

Freddy wants this night to end so they can go home and get in bed and Larry can hold him and nothing else will matter. But they’re hours and hours away from that, so he takes a deep breath and starts for the door.

It swings open before he gets there, and Freddy recognizes Larry’s friend—Rich or something. The man’s clearly drunk, but his focus is sharp, and he grins at Freddy like he knew where he’d be standing.

“Hey,” Newendyke says, only to have the elder man grab him by the throat and hurls him into the wall before he had a chance to react. “The fuck,” he gasps, but a punch to the face stuns him. Freddy’s hands work of their own accord, his police training running through his mind—protect your eyes, protect your head, defend rather than advance, wear them down—but he’s being punched down into the wall so viscously and suddenly, he doesn’t have time to counterattack.

He starts to slump toward to the floor and finds himself hauled upright as a giant arm is thrust across his throat. Freddy beats at him furiously, but is slammed once more into the wall until his vision is fading in and out, and he finds he’s having trouble standing.

“It’s not that I hate fags,” the man said, calmly, as if he was explaining a point in a conversation, and didn’t have Freddy half-strangled against the wall. “I actually rather like you. Something about a man looking at me in fear gets me all hot and bothered.” Freddy tried to punch him and got slammed back into the wall for his effort. “It’s when y’all step out of line and get ideas about shacking up and moving in and sweet-talking your Johns that I have a real problem. That man out there is a very good friend of mine, and the fact that you somehow found a way to fool him into thinking you’re anything more than a fuck-toy doesn’t sit right with me.”

“You don’t have,” Freddy gasped, “the slightest fuckin’ idea…what you’re talkin’ about.”

“I _really_ fuckin’ do.” He closed his hand around the younger man’s throat while the his own dipped between them, going for his belt. “If there’s anything I know about Larry, it’s that he prizes loyalty more than life. So when he hears you fucked his friend for a few hundred bucks…well…I don’t think he’s going to take that too well, do you?”

“I’m gonna…fuckin’…_kill_ you.”

“No need to sweet talk me, baby. I’m already there.” He grinned and reached up with his second hand to double the pressure on Freddy’s throat. “You like gangsters, huh? The money, the booze, the drugs? I’m full-up, baby-boy. Sure you’ll like it, like all your little faggot brothers before you. Oh, and if you bleed? No worries. I’ll just tell Larry that you begged for it rough.”

Freddy laughed, spraying blood out of his mouth and all over the asshole’s face. The man pulled back, pure offense on his face, as he spat “the fuck is so funny?”

“You’re a fuckin’ dead man,” Freddy gasped, as the sound of a safety clicking off echoed off the tiles and Larry said “don’t fuckin’ move.”

*

“I told you—put your hands on that man, and it’s over.”

“I’m sorry,” Rick said, spitting blood. “I’m drunk, okay?”

“I’m not sorry that it had to end this way. I’m glad I’m doing the world a service.”

“Larry, wait—”

Dimick pulled the trigger and watched the flower of blood emerge from the other man’s forehead before he sank to the stone of the alley. He felt the same thing he’d felt when he shot Joe and Eddy, or the cops who’d rounded on their stalled car—nothing. Not an ounce of guilt, sadness, or regret. It was for Freddy, and he'd never regretted a single thing he did for Freddy.

When he stepped back inside, a handful of the girls were gathered around, offering ice, whiskey, and support, but Freddy’s eyes went right to him. The younger man got off his seat, crossed the room, and wrapped his arms around Larry.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. Larry pressed a fierce kiss to the side of his head before forcibly pushing him to the front, so he could look in his eyes.

“I’m not,” he snapped. “Not a bit.” He slipped a hand onto the side of his face. Freddy reached up and pressed it against his own cheek. “You look like hell.”

“I’m okay.”

“Shit, baby. I’m sorry. I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

“I’m not,” Freddy echoed, and leaned into Larry’s palm. “Can we go home?”

“‘Course we can.” He smiled at the girls. “Double pay for the night, Ladies—you think you can hold it?”

The girls smiled back. “Si, Señor Dimmick,” one said with a wink.

Larry grinned back and slipped an arm around Freddy. Sure they’d lose money, and sure the girls would probably make off with more, and sure there’d be fights and God knows what else while they were gone—Larry couldn’t care less. The bar could burn to the ground tonight and his pulse wouldn’t raise, because he had Freddy.

The whole world seemed to underestimate what it meant that he had Freddy.


	2. Chapter 2

When Larry woke the next day, Freddy was still asleep beside him, turned on his side and facing him. He always fell asleep that way, though he’d often shift during the night, making Larry wake up to the back of his head or the side of his face.

He loved all of it, every angle, but his favorite was opening his eyes and seeing Freddy facing him, just like this.

Larry carefully brushed bangs away from his boy’s eyes, taking care not to wake him. His foul-mouthed, nerdy, good-hearted, perfect little cop. He’d never get over waking up next to him, and the rush of gratitude and love that followed realizing he was here, with this man he was fuckin’ crazy about, at his side.

His thoughts drifted to Alabama, and waking up next to her, and thinking _I should be in love_, and trying with all his might to will it—she was such a great Lady, in every possible way, and she’d loved him unabashedly, and he just couldn’t immerse himself in her. She’d acted like it was no big deal when they’d split, but he could see the pain in her face, and he’d wanted so badly to erase it, but he just couldn’t, because it would have been lies, and the woman knew lies like nobody else.

Maybe she’d known, just a little, his darkest secret—but she’d never let on. That was Bama. She took her men’s secrets to the grave. 

Beside him, the younger man sighed and stirred, eyes squinting against the morning light before landing on him.

“Hey,” Freddy mumbled, his usual morning greeting. “Hey, Larry.”

“Hey, you. How you feeling?”

“Stupid.” He winced and shifted into a stretch. “I let him get the jump on me in the bathroom.”

“How the fuck are you supposed to know some asshole was going to jump you? The location wasn’t the problem.”

“You thought it was.”

“I thought you were way too long in there. I went in to make sure you weren't crapping blood or something.”

“Liar.”

Larry sighed. “I thought he might be up in your face. I sure as fuck didn’t think he’d be trying to _rape_ you.”

“Don’t say that.”

“The fuck not?”

“Because…that shit’s for chicks.”

“The fuck it is.” Larry set his jaw. “That shit happens to men too. That’s what that sonofabitch was banking on—that men and women alike are too shy to report it. If it’s in a bathroom that’s even more likely. If they’re sex workers than forget it—rapists get away with all of it.”

“Fuck you and your fucking _statistics_,” Freddy barked, face flushed. “I ain’t no damsel in distress, okay?”

“I know that.”

“The fuck you do. The fuck _he_ did. _Rent boy_, he called me—and he didn’t even know we were together.”

“So what if you _were_? That doesn’t give him an excuse to hurt you.”

“Fuck, Larry, that’s not the fuckin’ _point_. It’s…_why_ did he think that? He didn’t think you were…but he took one look at me, and that was it. All I’m good for.”

Something about Freddy’s tone feels like a punch in Larry’s gut. “Hey—look at me,” he murmurs, pushing hair back from Freddy’s face. “Sex is the least of this thing we got.”

“You don’t like fucking me?”

“You know I love fucking you,” he chided. “But it doesn’t beat having beers on the beach. Or going to a movie. Or watching TV with you in my arms. Or waking up next to you. _That’s_ the shit I don’t want to live without.”

The younger man’s face fell, and he burrowed closer. “Me neither,” Freddy murmured, draping an arm across Dimmick’s stomach. “I just don’t like feeling like the girl.”

“You ain’t no fuckin’ girl.”

“You’re always protecting me. You’ve _killed_ for me. You run things here, you have to know that.”

“That ain’t got shit to do with whose manly or not. I run things up and I kill because I’m a bad man. You’re a good one. One I’m fuckin’ crazy about, and I’m not going to let anything take away from you.”

“You’re a good man too, Lar.”

“I’m not. But it doesn’t matter. I have my better half for that.”

The younger man leaned over and kissed him: Larry kissed him back, briefly, then took a few deep breaths, then turned on his side so he could look in Freddy’s eyes. “How’d you feel about moving to Canada?”

The younger man frowned. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“I thought you hated snow.”

“I hated being trapped in a room by myself for days on end. Somehow I don’t think it’ll be the same.” He strokes Freddy’s hair, looks straight in his eyes. “Think about it—we can sell the club, I’ll run up the money, get us some IDs and citizen papers, we can start up a bar or a store, and we go straight, for _real_.”

“You’re really fuckin’ serious,” Freddy said, propping himself on one elbow. Larry matched him.

“Why not?”

“I thought you were happy here.”

“I _am_. I was also happy in every shitty hotel in Mexico. I was happy on the run in Arizona. I was happy in your crappy apartment. _You’re_ what matters. Fuck the rest.”

“_Shit_, Lar. That’s a lot of fuckin’ responsibility.”

“You hear me ask you for anything but your opinion?”

Freddy slung a leg over Larry’s, seized his shoulder, and pulled himself on top of him, burrowing down with his head under the elder man’s chin. Larry pressed a kiss to the top of his head and ran a soothing hand up and the younger man’s back.

“What’s this about, really?” Freddy murmured.

“I want you to be safe. I want you to have a normal life again. I swore to you I’d go honest, and I meant it. This was supposed to get us there, and it can.”

"Why Canada?"

"They speak English, for one. Have good healthcare. Seem cool with two guys shacking up. And it's way easier to get fake papers there then anywhere in Europe."

“What if you get bored? What if you hate it?”

“Then we go somewhere else. I don’t give a shit where, or what we do, or how much we make—I want to do right by you.”

Freddy launched up and kissed him, wrapping arms around his neck. Larry added fingernails to the rub on his back and got a moan in response.

“That a yes?” he asked.

“I’ll go anywhere with you, you know that,” Freddy said, eyes shining. “Now shutup and fuck me.”

“Thought you liked me talking. About how sweet your eyes are. And your cute little ass. And your hot little abs. And your great fuckin’ arms.”

The younger man groaned and bucked against him. Larry flipped them over, pinning Freddy beneath him, and kissed him until they were both hard.

“Turn over,” he murmured. Freddy reached up, grabbed onto the headboard, and grinned wickedly.

“Make me,” he teased.

Larry was going to make him. Larry was going to fuck him. Larry was going to love him, every bit of him, every second of every day until they died.

But for the moment, Larry was going to kiss him, hard, so there was not an ounce of doubt in the world where he wanted to be, and who he wanted to be with.


End file.
